


Never Dead

by Leviathan0999



Category: Amidala69's "Turn and Face the Strange" Universe, Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-26
Updated: 2009-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-05 07:26:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leviathan0999/pseuds/Leviathan0999
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after the Fall of Voldemort, Harry, Ron and Hermione finally deal with a night that was too memorable for Hermione.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amidala69 (She wasn't thrilled. Ah](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Amidala69+%28She+wasn%27t+thrilled.+Ah), [well...)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=well...%29).



> This fic will make more sense if you've read the works of [Amidala69](http://checkmated.com/authors.php?name=amidala69&cat=stories), whose entire, amazing body of HP-related work, [The "Turn and Face the Strange" Universe](http://checkmated.com/authors.php?name=amidala69&cat=stories), can be found on [Checkmated](http://www.checkmated.com). I wholeheartedly endorse [Amidala69](http://checkmated.com/authors.php?name=amidala69&cat=stories), but not [Checkmated](http://www.checkmated.com), and I want you to be aware that I make that distinction.
> 
> The series begins the summer after HBP, and is now entirely AU, but it is all magnificent. All you really need to know for this story, though, is that after the defeat of Voldemort, all three members of the Trio went a little crazy. Ron's version involved too much alcohol, and bitter arrogance that drove Hermione away. Hermione's involved a rebound relationship with Viktor Krum, and too much "high life--" Too much booze, too much drugs, too much sex, at least once, in Amsterdam and under the influence, with too many partners, before reuniting with Ron.
> 
> In the last, _Magnum Opus_ of the series, [**All's Well That Ends Well**](http://checkmated.com/story.php?story=8629), we learn that there are five memories that Hermione, feeling unable to handle them, had removed and stored in flasks. After a catastrophic accident nearly kills her, she realizes that the danger those memories represent, waiting to be found and experienced, by Ron or perhaps their teenaged son, Arthur, is too great, and so she takes them back into herself, one at a time. The first is a memory of a night, during the Horcrux hunt, when, as an aftereffect of the curse of a Death-Eater, she and Ron and Harry did, in fact, have a mutual, three-way, sexual experience, the guilt from which, seeing herself as having betrayed both Ron and Ginny, Hermione did not wish to face.
> 
> I really wanted to see the scene of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, now years past the experience and able to view it from a more mature perspective, talking about incident. I poked [Amidala69](http://checkmated.com/authors.php?name=amidala69&cat=stories) about that, and she told me that she was all done with this story cycle, and had no more to say about it. In asking, I had joked about the possibility of writing Fan Fiction based on her Fan Fiction, and she said the notion blew her mind.
> 
> Well, since she was not going to write it, I took a swing at it. [Amidala69](http://checkmated.com/authors.php?name=amidala69&cat=stories) was... Not enchanted with it. Kind, very kind, but, no. (Her response to _My Spider-Sense is telling me you hated it_: "Hate is a strong word.") I mention this to make clear that, while she very graciously gave me permission to post it where-ever I like, it is not sanctioned by her, and not to be considered a part of her official ["Turn and Face the Strange" Universe](http://checkmated.com/authors.php?name=amidala69&cat=stories).
> 
> But, you know what? I like it. I really do, and am proud of it. I had not intended to post it without her imprimatur, but I just can't let it die. So, here it is:

**NEVER DEAD**

by **Leviathan**

A “**Turn and Face The Strange**” Universe Out-Take

With Kind Permission of **Amidala69**

_The past is never dead, it is not even past_.  ~William Faulkner

* * *

             “Hermione!” Ron's voice was a combination of indulgent amusement and annoyance. “You checked out his arse!”

             “I most certainly did _not!_” Hermione's response would have been unconvincing even without the blush that rose into her cheeks as she turned her gaze away from Harry's retreating back.

             “You _did!_” answered Ron. “You _totally_ checked out his arse!”

             “No.” Her voice was a hiss now, from between clenched teeth. “I didn't.”

             Sometimes it took Ron an extra moment or two to catch up with his wife's rapid tempers. She could leap ahead of him into rage before he knew how or why she got there. The burn, though, that he could always match, even if not the speed with which she got there.

             “You fucking well _did_, and there's no point--”

             Well, in that case there was no point finishing his angry sentence, as she was out of her seat and storming from the restaurant in high dudgeon.

             “For Fuck's sake, Ron,” said Harry quietly behind him, “What did you do now?”

             Ron looked over at his friend as he slid into his seat, scowling at him. “I don't know,” he told Harry. “I honestly don't fucking know.”

             Harry sat back, puzzled by his baffled expression, and lifted his beer stein. “Surely you have some idea, Ron. I mean, you were involved, right?”

             “Um... Sort of?” Ron ran a hand back through his hair. “Shit, Harry, I was just teasing her fer checking out your arse.”

             Harry sat upright, eyes wide. “She-- She what?” He leaned toward Ron. “_Really?_”

             Ron actually laughed. “Mate, it's not that outlandish. I mean, it's not my sort of thing, but you've got a perfectly fine arse, and she's hardly the first woman to check it out. You're not offended surely?”

             “No, no!” said Harry, then sort of blushed, as if he felt he'd responded a little _too_ quickly. “I mean--” he set back. “Oh, hell, Ron, when's the last time you saw Hermione respond to me as if I had _any _gender at all? It's just a bit of a surprise, is all.” he paused. “Still--”

             But Ron was already rising. “Yeah, best get after her and see what she's in a twist about.”

* * *

             Hermione was in the office, in the dark, sitting at her desk, rolling an empty vial back and forth between her hands.

             Ron stood behind her for a long time before he spoke. “I'm sure Harry will give your regards to Filius. I don't suppose it matters much. You can always wish him well the _next_ time he retires-- Oh, no, wait! That's something you only do _once!_”

             “I had to leave,” said Hermione, tonelessly.

             “So it would seem,” Ron shot back. “You had to have your bit of inexplicable personal drama, and to hell with a man who taught you so much, and taught _with_ you for so long!”

             “What do _you_ know about it?” she asked bitterly, and Ron snarled back, “_Not a fucking thing!_”

             Hermione spun toward him, rising from her chair. “That's right, Ron, not a fucking thing, but you still feel fine about hectoring me over it!”

             “Well, maybe you could tell me--” Ron began, but she shoved past him, calling over her shoulder, “Maybe you can figure it out for yourself!”

             He growled low in his throat as he turned, then heard the sound of the door slamming, followed by the crack of Apparition. “Great!” he bellowed at the empty room. “Just fucking perfect!”

             He collapsed into Hermione's swivel chair and spun to face the desk, slammed his palms down on it. There was a tinkle from the small glass vial between his hands, and he picked it up, then swung his wand absently to start the candles in the room. On the small vial was a paper label, with only a date on it: **_23 May, 1998_**.

             Ron stared at the dated label for a long moment before it clicked, and he closed his eyes.

             “Oh, bugger,” he said.

* * *

             “I thought you were with Harry,” said Ginny, stepping back away from the kitchen door, “at Flitwick's retirement dinner.”

             Hermione bit her lower lip, following her friend into her kitchen. “I had to leave. I, uh.. I had...  Ginny, I did something terrible.”

             Ginny blinked at her, closing the door. “To Flitwick?”

             This startled a laugh from Hermione, who shook her head, sitting at the kitchen table. “No, no! To Harr-- To Ron-- Well... To you.”

             Ginny stared at her, eyes widening. “_Tonight!?!?_”

             “What?” said Hermione. “What? No, God, no! What do you take me for?”

             Ginny laughed, pointing her wand at the kettle on the stove, and lifting it, now steaming, to the small wrought-metal stand on the table. “At the moment? A lunatic. Would you like a moment to gather your thoughts?”

             She took two mugs from a cabinet, and a small wooden box of teabags, and sat opposite Hermione, set about placing teabags in the mugs, and pouring the steaming water.

             Hermione's laugh was humourless, bitter. “I daresay I've done a little too much of that, frankly.”

             “Well, then, why don't you tell me what terrible thing you did to me?”

             “I-- Do you remember that awful article Rita wrote? The supposed interv--”

             “You _idiot!_” cried Ginny, before she could even finish.

             Hermione stared up at her.

             “I don't suppose it even _occurred_ to you,” Ginny snapped, “that you were confessing for _Harry_ as well!?!?”

             Hermione shook her head, eyes widening again. “I-- I don't--”

             “Well, fortunately for you, Harry told me about that night a long time ago. _Years_ before we were married.” Ginny actually laughed. “I swear, Hermione for somebody as clever as you're supposed to be, you can be an awful dolt sometimes! What if he hadn't told me? What if it was something he knew I couldn't handle? You were just going to storm in here and spill your guts without even thinking about the consequences to anybody else?” She reached over and literally tweaked Hermione's nose. “Idiot.”

             The colour had dropped from Hermione's face, and she leaned forward onto her hands, eyes still wide and full of tears at the enormity of what she'd almost done, what she would have done, without a thought, to her friend's marriage.

             Ginny's hand softy touched her hair, and her voice was kind. “It's all right, Hermione. No harm done. I just... Why tonight? After almost twenty years, why were you suddenly in such a hurry to tell me about this that you ducked out on Filius Flitwick's--”

             “I didn't remember it, not really, until last month,”  Hermione murmured.

             Ginny stared silently at her.

             “I... There were memories I felt like I couldn't handle,” Hermione told her. “I'd taken them out. Stored them for safekeeping. After the accident, I realized that someone could have come across them. Ron. Worse, Art! So I took them back.”

             “Merlin's pants, Hermione!” cried Ginny. “Are you serious? You're not just kidding me?”

             Hermione looked miserably down at the table.

             “Oh, good God, Hermione,” said Ginny. “Not only are you too smart to be such an idiot, you're too brave to be such a coward!” She pushed her hands back through her red hair. “Did you or did you not spend a lot of our school years telling me how important it was to deal with things?”

             Hermione's head rose. “You may recall, I made a number of bad decisions in the year or so after the War.”

             Ginny just shook her head, and gestured towards Hermione's mug, taking a pull at her own tea.

             They sat together quietly for a while, slowly drinking Ginny's strong, dark Oolong, before Ginny said, “I know he loves you best.”

             Hermione stared up at her. “What? No, he--”

             “Not _you_ you!” chided Ginny. She gestured in the air around Hermione with one hand. “_You. _Both of you. If it would have been legal to marry the two of you, I wouldn't have stood a chance.”

             “Ginny, what are you talking about? He _loves_ you!”

             She nodded, her expression serene. “Yeah, he does. But he's still settling because he can't have you and Ron together, and trying for either of you apart would rob you of each other. The two of you are everything to Harry. The space the three of you inhabit, even now,  is...  It's everything. It's complete. You're the first love he ever knew, and nothing else he ever has will ever touch you and Ron and the connection he has with you. I'm not even in the game.”

             “Ginny...” Hermione began, but the younger woman touched her hand.

             “Hush now,” Ginny told her. “We both know what's true, so don't fret about it. Just tell me what happened tonight.”

             Hermione was silent for a long moment. “Harry got up to go to the loo,” she finally said. “Ron caught me-- he was teasing me about--”

             “Oh, Godric,” Ginny smiled, taking Hermione's hand again. “Doesn't my husband just have the most _wonderful_ bum?”

             “God, yes!” Hermione breathed, her voice tiny and eyes wide with the disbelief that she was saying this aloud, much less to Ginny, her friend, her husband's sister, Harry's wife.

             “So you freaked out,” Ginny said. “Rowed with Ron, went home, he followed, you rowed some more, and then you came here to ruin my marriage with your ill-considered confession?”

             Hermione buried her face in her hands. “I wish you wouldn't put it like that...”

             “I'll bet,” chuckled Ginny.

             “Shut up,” said Hermione, weakly, and essayed a watery smile.

             “Drink your tea,” replied Ginny, “and when you get home to our husbands, I'd appreciate it if you'd send mine home unmolested.”

             “Oh, good God,” said Hermione.

* * *

             “I don't really remember that much,” Ron told Harry, handing him a glass and tipping in a generous dollop of Old Ogden's Finest. A small puff of flame rose from the glass. “I remember the _want._ I remember the look on your face when you--” he paused a moment, and Harry nodded, waving off the description. “I remember being happy for you both. Is that strange?”

             “Yes!” cried Harry, half-laughing. “It would be strange from anybody, but from _you?_ Jesus Christ, Ron! _Strange_ doesn't begin to cover it!”

             “I remember what you did after,” Ron said quietly, and knocked back a slug of Fire Whiskey.

             Harry closed his eyes. He could still remember the taste of them, of the three of them, of his sex and Hermione's and Ron's skin and the friction of his cock sliding against Harry's tongue as he lapped greedily at their joining, one of Hermione's hands fisted in his hair.

             “Yeah,” he finally said.

             “I didn't really think about it at the time,” Ron continued. “I mean, you know, at the moment, I was too busy to even be surprised. But looking back... I always sort of wondered... I mean, you like girls. Most straight blokes wouldn't...” Ron shook his head. “Anyway...”

             “Ron...” Harry took a contemplative sip from his own smoking glass. “I've never really been anything so simple as 'Normal.' You know what I mean?”

             “Not really,” said Ron.

             “Well, you know, my childhood, the Dursleys... A normal kid gets _touched. _Hugged, kissed, patted on the head. I got slapped and pinched and my hair pulled. The best touch I could hope for from the Dursleys was distaste. How could I have been normal?”

             “After all these years, I still hate them,” said Ron.

             Harry smiled. “And I really appreciate it, Ron. Honestly.”

             They both sat up as they heard the front door open, and Hermione stepped meekly into the room. Harry looked up at her, and his hand flicked. The glass vial glittered as it tumbled through the air toward her.

             She caught it easily, as Harry'd intended, and looked down at it in her hands.

             “Hello, Harry,” she said quietly.

             “Hi,” he replied. He summoned another small glass, filled it with Fire Whiskey, and held it out to her.

             “Thanks,” she sighed, sitting slowly on the couch beside Ron. Harry nodded acknowledgement. They were quiet a long moment, Hermione staring down at the highlights and reflections from the vial as she turned it slowly between her fingers, before she lifted the glass of Old Ogden's and bolted down a slug.

             “I'm sorry,” Harry finally said. “I never knew it was that awful. I never knew you hated it so much. I never knew it was so bad you had to take it out.”

             Ron snorted at him. “I told you, Harry, you're an idiot.”

             Harry glanced over at him. “Why else? Why else would she--”

             “Because I _liked_ it.” Hermione's voice was very quiet, and still filled the room.

             Harry's eyes snapped up to hers., and it took all she had to meet that emerald gaze, not to drop her eyes in shame.

             “I'd expect to have thought about it for a few days, a few weeks... But even after three years, I was thinking about it. About the two of you, about your four hands, so beautifully coordinated. Two mouths on my body, two cocks hard against and inside me. You were my boyfriend's best friend, then you were marrying my best friend, and then everything fell apart with me and Ron and there was Viktor. And the memory of your touch, both of your touches, was always on my skin. I don't think I really knew it was a problem until Amsterdam.”

             Ron gasped, “Jesus' fucking pants, Hermione!”

             She looked over at him, saw the colour rising into his face. “Look at you,” she said. “You're already burning with jealousy--”

             “Fucking right I am! Almost twenty fucking years, and you've been longing for my best fucking mate--”

             “_No, goddammit!_” Harry had turned toward Ron. “_Listen_ to her, Ron, for fuck's sake! Not for _me_, for us! Both of us.”

             “Well, what kind of sick--”

             Harry wouldn't even let him finish. “Like you'd think it was sick if you could have Hermione and Michelle together at one time!”

             “_Excuse me!_” cried Hermione as Ron sputtered.

             Harry shrugged at her. “It was only an example.”

             “Well, it was a crappy example,” said Ron darkly. “It's obvious enough why _you'd_ defend her, object of her lust, an' all, but throwing how badly I treated--”

             “_Object...!_”Harry's mouth gaped open at Ron. “Are you fucking _kidding_ me!?!?”

             Ron shoved angry hands back through his hair. “You're right, you're right. Fuck. I hate when you do that, you know that?” He poured more Fire Whiskey into his glass. “I'm just-- I'm sort of freaking out about this-- About you having to bottle up the memory to keep your hands off Harry--”

             Hermione's voice was low and dangerous. “You're completely off-base and out of line.”

             “I fucking know I am!” said Ron. “I'm freaking out. How come you're the only allowed to overreact and have emotional meltdowns?”

             Harry couldn't help it. He laughed right out loud at that. When his best friends looked over at him, annoyed, he laughed harder. “God, it's Fifth Year, all over again, but now you're married so you can go ahead an' shag!”

             “Yeah, we don't need _your_ help for that, either,” Ron growled, then found himself chuckling to himself. “Godric's Balls, what a wanker I am! I'm sorry, Harry.” He looked up at Hermione. “I'm sorry love.”

             Hermione and Harry exchanged a glance, and Ron chuckled again, taking his wife's hand.. “In the past few months, I've come way too close to losing you, too many times. I'm a bit thick, but even _my_ learning curve isn't that bad. I refuse to drive you away with some stupid tantrum. I just... It was really that-- It was really that big a thing for you?”

             “You never really understood what Amsterdam was about, did you?” said Harry, quietly, and both Ron and Hermione snapped around to stare at him. He'd heard the story from Hermione, after Ron had found the pictures, after they'd fought and reconciled, but he'd never really talked to them about it, and thought about it as little as possible. But now, with Hermione's new revelation, pieces were falling into place in his head, and his thoughts were only seconds ahead of his words.

             “Think about it,” he told them. “Viktor, bluff and athletic, emotional and instinctive. Todor, slender and messy-haired and sensitive. Best mates.” He turned toward Hermione. “Tell me I'm wrong, Hermione. Tell me you weren't trying to recreate that night.”

             “Jesus!” said Hermione, her voice small in the room. “Jesus!”

             Ron's face was darkening again, and Harry turned to him. “Mate,” he said, quietly, “mate, you're not thinking about this right. You were right before. It was a bad example. Imagine if I was a girl.”

             Ron blinked and shook his head, he image Harry's words had conjured blind-siding him. “If-- _What!?_”

             “If it was a girl you met on the Express in your first year, and gave a half a sandwich to. A girl you'd been friends with, been mates with, stuck with through thick and thin. Another girl, along with Hermione. Imagine if there were two girls you were that close to, loved that much, and you were in love with one of them, but for one night, you had them both, both to love you, both to protect you. Both to make you feel like you mattered, like you weren't a frea-- Well, anyway, you can understand that, can't you? How for one night Hermione had that? And then she went through-- Well, what she went through. Without you. Viktor. Amsterdam. The attack, the miscarriage. Everything in the world telling her she was worthless, and the memory of the two of us, cherishing her, pleasuring her, worshipping her skin and her hair and her taste and her scent...”

             Ron and Hermione were both staring at him with wide, almost frightened eyes, and he coloured.

             “Okay, yeah, so going a little overboard, there,” he murmured. “Sorry.”

             They sat for a while in a silence grown awkward, and Hermione finally said, “Ginny was right.”

             Harry blinked. “What?”

             “I was at Ginny's. I went over there with some mad thought of confessing to her.”

             A bark of laughter, sounding remarkably like Sirius', escaped Harry as Ron did a face-palm.

             “I don't suppose,” Ron began, “that you stopped to think—”

             “It's okay, Ron,” Harry said. “I told her years ago. Before Riddle died, to tell you the truth. I... I felt like I had to.”

             “Well, you didn't tell her this,” Hermione muttered, “but she knows it and she's right.”

             “Knows what?” asked Harry, and Ron watched intently to see the answer.

             “She said that if you could have been with us, she wouldn't have stood a chance.”

             Ron's eyes widened and his head swung over to regard Harry, who flushed furiously as he stammered out, “I-- I _love_ Ginny! You _know _I do!”

             “Oh, Merlin's most saggy left--”

             “Ron!” Hermione's scolding was automatic. Her eyes were still on Harry.

             He gulped down the last of his drink, and stared down at the empty glass in his hands, his face very red.

             “She knows you love her, Harry,” Hermione finally said. “Nobody questions that. But she's right.”

             Harry's head went down and up once, spastically, more a convulsion than a nod.

             “Merlin, Harry,” breathed Ron. “I didn't... I never...” He put his glass down on the table. “We were just talking. What you did after.”

             “Ron...” Hermione's voice was quiet, a warning and a plea.

             “She didn't know, Ron. She had her eyes shut.”

             She frowned at him. “What are you talking about, Harry?”

             “I came.” Harry's voice was quiet and matter-of-fact, and his eyes were haunted. “Then I moved over, and it was Ron's turn. You remember.”

             She nodded once, as jerkily as he had. Ron sat forward, elbows on knees, watching them both avidly, his face and eyes both bright.

             “You remember I went down on you while Ron was fucking you.” It was as if he were describing a first-year Quidditch game. If she hadn't known him as long and as well as she did, she'd never have thought it mattered to him at all.

             “Ron came. He sat back on his haunches. Your head was back, your eyes were closed.”

             “You licked me,” Hermione replied. Ron made a small sound in his throat. “You licked me again and again, long, slow strokes up my vagina.”

             Ron's eyes slid closed as he made that noise again, and Hermione wasn't sure yet whether it was anger or arousal.

             “And between each lick,” said Harry, “a pause. You had your eyes closed. You didn't see. I was going back and forth.”

             Her eyes widened.

             “I was shocked.” Ron's voice was husky. “He had my dick in his hand, slid me out of you like a wand from a holster, and I was so shocked when he slid me into his mouth. Then he licked you, and then sucked me again.”

             “Drinking the taste of Ron from your fanny,” said Harry. “The taste of your sex from his cock.”

             He grabbed the bottle, filled his glass again, sitting back on his chair. “Ginny was right,” he finally said. “If I could have just stayed, just been with the two of you, forever, like that...” He bolted back the entire glass, and filled it again. “Ginny was right.”

             “You're going back to her, though,” Ron said.

             “'Course I am. I love her. I love our kids. I'd never do anything to hurt her, you know that.”

             Ron nodded. “But you'll always long to go back to that night.”

             Harry's eyes were hollow as he nodded.

             Ron mirrored his gesture. “I won't, Harry,” he finally said. “I won't, love. But... I liked it too. I loved it. You know the first time I met Harry, I gave him half my sandwich. Second year, I came up with a plan to rescue him from those awful Muggles of his.” He smiled at them. “I shared my sandwich, I shared my room...” He laughed quietly to himself. “And I finally shared my girl. I'll never forget, Harry. I'll never forget how you looked when I gave you half my sandwich. Like nobody ever gave you a bite before. You looked at my room like it was a palace. And I'll never forget the look, the look of gratitude and surprise and wonder, as you slid into Hermione.”

             “Oh, Ron!” Hermione was smiling at him, her eyes tender and proud, as if he weren't talking about passing her around like a Chocolate Frog card.

             Ron's eyes flickered to his wife's and then were serious on Harry's. “I'm not... You said, before, you could never be as simple as Normal. It's all I can be. You know that, right?”

             Harry nodded. “Yeah, Ron. I know.”

             “But I liked what you did to me,” Ron said quietly. “I'm not a pouf, but... I liked that. I just... I always blamed the spell.”

             “The spell was broken by orgasm,” said Hermione.

             Harry nodded. “I've thought about that an awful lot, over the years.”

             “You never blamed the spell for what you did?” asked Ron, a little surprised.

             Harry shook his head. “I'd already come. The spell was broken.”

             Ron frowned. “But... Hermione... You came, what, three, four times that night. The first time...”

             “The first time with both your fingers sliding into me together, both your mouths on my breasts.”

             Harry made a small noise. There was no doubt there: arousal.

             “Which means...” Ron began, his voice a low undertone.

             “Which means,” Harry rode him down, “That your wife was and is a healthy girl with a healthy sex-drive. Are you telling us you have a problem with that?”

             Ron stared at him for a long moment. “My only problem at this point,” he said, “Is that if we keep talking like this for about three more minutes, I'm going to embarrass myself in my robes.” He stood quickly, and Harry's eyes captured the prominent bulge in his jeans as he turned toward the stairs. “Night, Harry. Hermione, five minutes?”

             “Yes, dear,” she said with a smile, and helped Harry to his feet.

             As they stepped over toward the floo, she smiled at him. “You're very sweet, you know, Harry. And still very sexy. We're okay, aren't we?”

             “Are we?” he asked, seriously.

             “I think so. I mean, right now, I want to drag you upstairs with me, and show Ron what we've been missing... But there are a million things in the world I can't have. I'm like you. I wouldn't hurt Ginny for anything.”

             She reached behind his head, and pulled his mouth down to hers. Their kiss was a little more than chaste, but less than invitation, and when it broke, she reached up to the mantle-piece, and pulled down a handful of Floo Powder, which she threw into the flames, saying, “Harry's Kitchen.”

             The flames roared blue-green, and as Harry bent down to step into the cramped fireplace, Hermione told him, “Tell Ginny I'm sorry.”

             He looked back up at her. “For what?”

             Hermione leaned over, sliding her hand slowly over the curves of his jutting bottom as he leaned.

             “She wanted me to send you home unmolested,” she said, and turned away as Harry stepped spinning into the green flames, her laughter like quicksilver and desire.

**END**


End file.
